A successful but hateful Strategy to re-energize Large Pakistani Organizations

Let's be clear on one thing, great leaders don't have time to give a single organization their whole life. They tend to have varied objectives in life, a single organization whether it be PIA, Steel Mill, Banks or even the State Bank of Pakistan has only a small footprint in overall scheme of things. If you are a great leader, you tend to move from places to places making revolutionary changes where ever you go.

At least, this has been the story of Pakistani Organization. A Leader comes in, with great power given to them, tasked to change the whole organizational culture. And there have been more than a couple of successful instances, were the same strategy has worked.

The strategy is simple, it acknowledges that there is no time to improve the current organization so they create a parallel organization within the organization, it has more power, resources and flexibility and it cuts the ties with old organization. The newly hired people in the new organization are comparatively fresh so they can be molded to the modern needs. What we have now are two completely different sets of people, one (comparatively) old aged, slow, bureaucratic, somewhat loyal and the second sets of people are better educated, young, fast paced, without any red tape culture, would work there ass off to complete the project on time and would move to a different organization without a second thought. There is a hiring freeze in the old organization so they don't grow and are slowly washed out, 'golden handshakes' also comes in the picture if they want get rid of them early.

So far the strategy has worked at State Bank, HBL (and other banks), Lucky group, K Electric and some other organizations. The results are somewhat confused but a lot better than what it would have been if nothing was done. Though one thing is for sure, the organizational output increases drastically.

How can you identify whether this strategy has been implemented in an organization or not. You will see on occasion a really frustrated employee who always have bad words for management, who sees the management as someone who are hell-bent on destroying the organization and on other occasions an employee who are specific, young, with decision making ability and people who work late hours.

Whether the strategy is good or not, would have a different answers depending from which angle you see. But one thing is for sure, the performance and quality of output increases twofold.

Optimism & Leadership

Seriously, In an environment like Pakistan, it is insane to be optimistic, where things usually go beyond your worst expectations. But for some people, it seems pessimism isn't an option. For example, Asad Umar (x-CEO Engro), the guy seriously went into expansion mode, bringing ENGRO, a company limited in its scope into entering a very competitive FOODS sector, which is heavily dominated by Multinationals. Though times were much better back then, but taking an organization into new waters and competing with the sharks, requires some seriously insane mindset.

But what do these people really gain, from being optimistic in a pessimistic environment?

No serious competition!!

There are not many insane people/organization out there, only resistance they get is from existing players, which are already playing it safe as they believe in the failure of the initiative without proper industry support. These leaders really make things go.

Dr. Ishrat Husain's initiative to revamp IBA & bringing it in the top 100 universities of the world seems to be ridiculously insane. But even if the initiative fails, it will surely bring the university in top 250, where none of the Pakistani universities have ever been before.

The outclass leadership of people like Asad Umar and Dr. Ishrat Husain is what this country actually needs, who can turn the tide in a high velocity storm.

Dilemma of Family Businesses in Pakistan

Family Businesses in Pakistan are the real success story, where most of the Businesses are run by Entrepreneurs' children & then their children and so on. There are very few cases where the torch has been handed over to Professionals. It seems that Entrepreneurs have little trust in professionals to run their businesses or there is something entirely different.

What this translates into?

The business growth is limited by the number and interest of Seth's children. 

I came across a story by Asad Umar speaking about the dilemma. He was traveling with a well known successful entrepreneur in Pakistan, during the discussion the Entrepreneur talked about the vast array of facilities offered by Bangladesh for the textile sectors in Pakistan and that many Pakistani Businesses are moving there.

That is where things get interesting, when Asad queried on the reason why he hadn't moved his Business there. The answer was

None of my children want to live in Bangladesh

 
If this is whats limiting the growth of businesses in Pakistan then there is an urgent need for the Business Schools to come up with research of those organization who have successfully handed over their business to professionals. Also, work should be done to change the mindset of the Seth's in Pakistan.

Serial Enterpreneurs

There is a lot of buzz about serial entrepreneurs in the written media, who are these people. Just like serial killers they are continuous in what they do, one after another. They have a lust for starting new businesses, establishing them but not necessarily managing them in the long run and they are really good at it.

For a country's growth, these people are a light shining brighter than anything else, these people should be identified and be given all the facilities (financing etc.) to start businesses. A program like TEDx should specially focus on these people.

More profiling and research should be done to identify them from their early stages, not to waste their crucial time. Babson College (Bostan, USA) and its sister concern IBA-CED (Karachi, Pakistan)
are among the many universities involved in entrepreneurial research, their focus is building not business managers rather entrepreneurs. These establishments should be supported, nurtured and  facilitated with everything they need and in time they can be expected to yield extraordinary results.